There’s no shortage of chamber music in the Triangle, but you might conclude that hardly any new material had been written in 50 years. The demand for the classical masters is insatiable, and orchestras play what their patrons want to hear. But since 2009, one married couple has been working to give Raleigh’s classical scene […]
Brian Howe
Posted inMusic
Camera Obscura’s steady waver remains
Camera Obscura with Photo Ops Friday, July 12, 9 p.m. $17.50–$20 Haw River Ballroom It was summertime, so insects of prey were legion. In 2006, the Glaswegian indie-pop band Camera Obscura performed at the Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro. I had the assignment to interview lead singer and songwriter Tracyanne Campbell, so late that afternoon, I […]
Posted inMusic
The struggle: Through Trial and Travail, Newscaster and Singer Pam Saulsby Enters a Second Act
On-air, you don’t see Saulsby’s mouth quiver as she talks about what she calls “the struggle,” her tumultuous year between leaving WRAL and arriving at NBC affiliate WNCN.
Posted inGuides
Steel String Craft Brewery and taproom aims to capitalize on Carrboro’s local spirit
Steel String Craft Brewery 106A S. Greensboro St. Carrboro 919-240-7215 Monday–Saturday noon–2 a.m. Sunday noon–10 p.m. On a recent Wednesday evening at Steel String, a craft brewery and taproom in Carrboro, people and dogs press around outdoor tables, while inside, conversations ricochet off distressed brick walls. Nearby in a glass room, several large, silver-colored tanks […]
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The Lumineers’ anthemic single “Ho Hey” is a hit made mostly of other hits
The Lumineers Koka Booth Amphitheatre Thursday, June 13 7 p.m., sold out With Cold War Kids and J Roddy Walston & The Business “It’s really arbitrary to any of us,” said Wesley Schultz, lead singer of the folk-rock band The Lumineers, who perform at Cary’s Koka Booth Amphitheatre on Thursday. He was talking to American […]
Posted inArt
The dazzling, perplexing short stories of UNC-Wilmington’s Rebecca Lee
Bobcat and Other Stories By Rebecca Lee Algonquin, 212 pp. Flyleaf Books Tuesday, June 18, 7 p.m. Did you know there’s a dazzling, perplexing fiction writer teaching down at UNC-Wilmington? I didn’t until I got my hands on Bobcat and Other Stories, a phenomenal short story collection by Rebecca Lee. With their thin, glossy layers […]
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Chuck Johnson’s quietly triumphant return to the Triangle
Playing a solo acoustic guitar set at a crowded bar is a dicey proposition. But Chapel Hill expat Chuck Johnson—visiting Durham from Oakland for the release party of Crows in the Basilica, his new record for Triangle label Three Lobed—worked his six- and 12-string guitars like a snake charmer at the Pinhook on May 23, […]
Posted inMusic
Within a widening gyre of genres, Chuck Johnson has discovered his artistic through-line
Chuck Johnson with Jenks Miller The Pinhook Thursday, May 23, 9 p.m. $9 During the last 20 years, Chuck Johnson has developed what appear to be three discrete aspects of musical performance. The first is that of experimental rock guitarist for Spatula, one of the weirder bands to flourish in Chapel Hill’s indie-rock heyday. Another […]
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The anarchic face of Savage Weekend noise festival belies an acute curatorial mind
Savage Weekend Nightlight Friday, May 17 6 p.m.–2 a.m. Saturday, May 185 p.m.–2:30 a.m. $10–$18 Ryan Martin sits at a picnic table outside the Looking Glass Cafe in Carrboro, his eyes searching the middle distance. He’s trying to decide how to encapsulate the third annual Savage Weekend, which takes over Chapel Hill experimental music stronghold […]
Posted inMusic
The Nein’s We Get Lost
The title’s not a joke: In the mid ’00s, Triangle art rockers The Nein looked set to establish themselves as a standard-bearing local band. But after releasing their 2007 sophomore LP, Luxury, they seemed to fall off the face of the earth. We Get Lost, their first release in six years, is technically not even […]
